By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

Landed in NYC on Thursday, fitting, since I owe you folks Part 5 of the Barbara Corcoran interview, where we chat about NYC and the hit it has taken since September 15 2008. Here it is, below. Honestly, now that I am back here for the third time in four months, something tells me New York will be just fine. This city is relentless.

I asked her what she thought about NYC since Lehman Bros. went down.

WatchMojo: So much has happened in the last year since Lehman Brothers shut down. How is New York doing, and how has New York changed in the last year?

Barbara Corcoran: Well, you know when there is trouble in Wall Street, there is trouble everywhere else. The real estate market immediately took a knee jerk reaction, and most importantly it affects the status properties. Park Avenue, 5th Avenue, Central Park West, Greenwich Village, you know anything big and expensive, immediately feels the injury of a bad year on Wall Street, bad bonuses, short bonuses, less than expected.

So New York is so tied into the financial market, real estate New York is so tied into the financial market. Not that we don’t have so many other businesses here, you know great thing about New York is not a one horse town unlike many other places around the state, it’s not a one horse town, yet the horse that everybody has their eye on is the financial factor.

WatchMojo: NY is very diversified, but finance seemed to be the economic engine. But let me ask you – as a New Yorker, as an American, as a business person – is New York rising or is it falling?

Barbara Corcoran: NY is a very comfortable city to live in, and people with a lot of money buy fourth homes, fifth homes, six homes here. You know, people with money can disappear in New York. The kids aren’t kidnapped in New York, celebrities go walk on the street with a good pair of sunglasses and not be recognized. You can get your kid into good private school in New York, more rarely than in many other cities even though it’s tough, but there is a school for everybody.

So, people like having families here, and most importantly in New York I’ve witnessed it now for thirty-five, maybe more years than that, I have witnessed that when New York falls out of favor with one nationality there is always somebody working there online to pick it up. So, I remember worrying about when the Japanese who were producing 20% of corporate group sales for us disappeared, because their market went into the dumps. We were selling their properties, 30% discounts to the Taiwanese who were laughing their way to the bank. When Taiwan had a bad spill, we started selling it to Germans, the Italians; when they kind of disappeared we had the Russians. So, there is always someone who wants New York City, and I think people don’t give that as much credit as they should. And, in that way New York always proves itself as form of resilient than other places; not everybody wants to have a third home in say, what would be I am thinking of in Moscow.
But, so many wealthy people want a third home or fourth home or fifth home in New York City. I am not, you know it’s much more akin to say London, and so is New York as part of the US going to do as well as parts of Asia? Is that economy growing faster, maybe not, but I say the Asian economy if it grows faster and there is more money, or the Russian economy always finds its way into New York.
WatchMojo: Complete my sentence, to be successful in New York you have to…

Barbara Corcoran: Oh, you are telling me to fill in the blanks?

WatchMojo: Yes.

Barbara Corcoran: Oh!

WatchMojo: I am interviewing you, right?

Barbara Corcoran: You just have to come here, because New York, you just have to come here and get start, because New York puts absolute, it’s the easiest place to succeed in America.

I really believe that, alright because what New York has that no other city has is they don’t give a damn who you are, where you are from; all they want to know is what can you do for me, okay? And so, if you could fill in that blank as an entrepreneur you’ve got a business going. Now, there is so much raw talent here; there is so much money here. There is so much even pressure to produce, because in the competition here there is so much overcrowding here that even if you are the laziest person in the world you can’t walk through the city street without feeling the beat and getting with it, you know if you are a good entrepreneur.

So yeah, you just have to come here and answer your question.